The Beach House Built for Fun

Instead of watching their children tag along on their friends' family cruises, some parents are building beach getaways loaded with kid magnets.

By

Sanette Tanaka

Jan. 31, 2013 6:55 p.m. ET

A 2-year-old helped
Steve Games
design his 40,000-square-foot beach house.

Fun and Sun

This 3,900-square-foot Cape Cod beach home in Chatham, Mass., was renovated with the owners' three sons in mind. This 300-square-foot boys' bedroom has a nautical theme. Bob O'Connor for The Wall Street Journal

The La Jolla, Calif., real-estate executive wanted to make sure his young daughter, Sarah, would have plenty to do when the family vacationed on the coast of Mexico. So he included an entertainment room with games and pinball, a playroom, bunk beds that sleep six, separate kids' pools and a toy barn on the beach. Construction cost about $15 million, and he continues to make improvements—adding a small theater and a horse stable—as his daughter gets older.

Sarah, now 14, says her favorite feature is the "jump rock—a 12-foot waterfall that we can jump off of into a lower pool."

"We built the whole thing in order to make it friendly for children," says Mr. Games, the chairman of the board of Pacific Sotheby's International Realty. "It's about being totally open and accessible and not having a single place where the kids cannot be wet."

Instead of letting their children tag along on their friends' family cruises, some parents are building beach getaways loaded with kid magnets. Knowing that a mere TV room with videogames just doesn't cut it anymore, they're adding high-tech media rooms, bunk rooms, indoor playgrounds and outdoor water-park features.

ENLARGE

LAND HO: In Chatham, Mass., a Cape Cod-style home has lots of amenities for kids, such as a painted porthole view, and upper loft in the children's bedroom.
PSDAB

While many homeowners seek open-floor plans and a spacious great room, they also want private areas to give children and adults their space. To that end, some are ditching the traditional Cape Cod-style home and constructing family compounds with multiple buildings that flank a common area.

He built a roughly 30,000-square-foot house for himself and his family in Bridgehampton, N.Y., with a bowling alley, indoor playground, skateboard half-pipe, tree house and a zip line. "It was totally kid-oriented," Mr. Farrell says. He estimates that the construction of the home cost roughly $1,000 per square foot. The home, known as "The Sandcastle," is on the market for $43.5 million.

Interior designer
Paige Schnell
recently worked on a house on Mustang Island in Texas. The décor, which cost about $150,000, includes a large bunk room that has hardwood walls and sleeps eight to 10 kids—each bed outfitted with its own TV. The room is attached to a camp-style bathroom with three sinks lined up in a row. Every other room in that house was designed to be kid-friendly. Even the white living-room sofa was covered in indoor/outdoor fabric.

ENLARGE

LAKE HOUSE: Whimsical details such as monogrammed shower stalls, shown here, are built into this home on Lake Wequaquet in Massachusetts. It was built by Polhemus Savery DaSilva.
PSDAB

"There is no off-limit space in that house," says Ms. Schnell, principal at Tracery Interiors, which has offices in Rosemary Beach, Fla., and Mountain Brook, Ala.

Jonathan Kukk,
a luxury residential architect based in Naples, Fla., is designing a waterfront home in Port Royal for grandparents who want to make the house appeal to their grandkids. The house will feature a roughly 500-foot "kids' wing," with three sets of bunk beds, a lofted play area and a camp-style bathroom with four sinks and sectioned-off toilets and showers. The wing is located in an attic space above the garage, so it's acoustically separated from the rest of the home, Mr. Kukk says. Construction and finishes will likely cost between $3 million and $5 million.

Marion Fischer,
who lives in Bedford Corners, N.Y., also created distinct play areas for her three sons when she renovated her 3,900-square-foot Cape Cod beach home in Chatham, Mass., about eight years ago. The 800-square-foot basement is designed to look like a ship, complete with curved walls and portholes. The boys' bedroom has four beds in a nautical theme, leading to a ship deck loft with four more beds.

Even though her boys are older, now ages 12, 14 and 15, Ms. Fischer, owner of Gallery Galleon, an art gallery in Vieques, Puerto Rico, has no plans to make her home more adult. "I always felt that it would be a house that would be in our family for 100 years," says Ms. Fischer. "I hope my kids will want to come even as adults and bring their own kids."

ENLARGE

John DaSilva, design principal at Polhemus Savery DaSilva Architects Builders, designed the Fischer home and others to withstand rough play by kids and pets. He also likes to add playful architectural elements, such as wavy beams and columns, in his projects.

Before, homes on the beach had to be built as sturdy, compact boxes to withstand the elements. Now, improved glass better resists storms and helps keep heat out of the home, allowing for more indoor/outdoor living and floor-to-ceiling glass walls, says
Scott Lee,
president of SB Architects with offices in San Francisco, Miami and Shenzhen, China. Builders are choosing more durable materials—tough hardwood flooring like teak or ipe, ceramic tile that looks like limestone, even rubber flooring—so children can feel free to run around.

Some traditional adult amenities, like bars, dining rooms, luxurious master suites and spa-style bathrooms, are falling out of favor. "The idea of a wine room is a little bit passé," he adds.

Keeping kids—and grandkids—happy is a common theme. Mr. Games vacations at his beach home in La Paz, Baja California Sur, Mexico, about eight to 10 times a year.

"There is no question that we felt that this would be a place that would attract Sarah's friends, and by attracting Sarah's friends, it ended up giving us more time with her," Mr. Games says.

The beach-home market is much improved from the height of the downturn in 2008 and 2009, but it has not completely recovered from the housing crash, says
Susan Wachter,
professor of real estate and finance at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.

Still, beach properties are highly coveted, Prof. Wachter says, and new money from young tech moguls, international buyers and all-cash buyers who aren't relying on bank financing is sparking a resurgence.

Having a beach house clearly marked for play could hurt its resale value and serve as a deterrent to potential buyers, says
West Chin,
a New York City-based architect and interior designer. "Most of our clients want their home to be sensitive to kids without being fully customized," he says. Rather than spending $100,000 on a play room, he recommends building beach homes in a universal floor plan and decorating with neutral colors. "You can add childlike touches through furnishings and décor—things that are easy to change," he says.

But for the most part, homeowners see their beach house as a long-term investment and aren't as concerned about eventually reselling, says
Ron Radziner,
design principal at Los Angeles-based Marmol Radziner. "It's really about their quality of life at the moment," he says. "Not that they're not concerned about resale value, but they're more concerned about their lives right now."

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